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How to register for seasonal work and does it need a specific experience? I would love to work even though I have not much experience, only the one for the village life where I grew up doing all the farm work on my grandparents' farm.

In my experience this article succinctly captures an elephant, or should that be a veritable herd of elephants in the room of the public service that is either overlooked, ignored or missed completely? Often something that on paper appears to be a straightforward to implement becomes irretrievably mired in “politics”. Not politics in the accepted sense but rather as Mark has described it. An impenetrable wall of silence, polite obfuscation or “mi no savi” that is part of what Professor Severus Snape would probably have described as the workings of the dark arts. The flow on effect is most deeply felt at the community level. The manifestations of clientelism go a long way towards explaining why drugs are not delivered to a particular area, why a teacher who abandoned a school years ago and returned to their home province still remains on the payroll even though the school is no longer operating. The machinations are endless. If you ask at the community level something is generally muttered about “O, em blo gavman tasol.” A polite passing of the issue back the one entity almost nobody trusts. If you ask at district or the provincial office, the query is either met with blank looks or is passed off as a matter for someone else, who if they can ever be found will tell you there is no money for that. Everybody has their excuse, their long-practiced alibi. The point being, communities, the bottom feeders in the service delivery food chain are not empowered to drive the kind of change that might make a difference. In a clientelist environment power vests with government actors who remain unaccountable to the people they are supposed to represent. In practice the majority of public servants do not represent or act in the best interests of communities. Indeed, given the workings of clientelism, they might jeopardise their positions if they did. And the people at the bottom of the food chain know this implicitly. It should therefore not be a surprise that women die in childbirth in horrendous numbers and youth, many of whom have access to social media but not an education that leads to a meaningful job are rebelling in greater numbers and in ever more concerning ways as time passes. This is where I take issue with models of development that do not recognise that in such a hugely diverse society, a country that was cobbled together to suit its colonial overlords over a century ago, where hyper regionalism and clientelism prevail, the Westminster system of public service, "without fear or favour and in the best interests of the common good" and all that are just a line in a manual. As a keen observer of PNG for four decades I believe time has run out for a development approach that while undoubtedly well-meant, has in practice left ninety percent of the population without the tools to lift themselves out of the dire situations they now find themselves in. I believe Mark’s analysis has thrown down a gauntlet to those who live by a Canberra facing model with no pathway to empower the target population that desperately craves change. We have GEDSI and MERLA but what do we have for ten million rural folks who live by patronage in ten thousand clientelist mini states. Where are the culturally appropriate approaches to mobilise their own talent to facilitate the basic services and economic development they can manage in a sustainable manner? A layer of activities that directly addresses and meets the needs of women and girls and gives youth greater agency over the outcomes they desire. Activities to supplement and extend the reach of government but not detract from it while it in turn gets its house in order. Until and unless we as the nations largest donor partner understand the elephants lounging around in plain sight, the ones we have long chosen to ignore and adjust our focus to directly facilitate community empowerment, expect the unexpected.

You are absolutely correct that the global community is obsessing about other conflicts while ignoring the conflict in Sudan which these days directly affects many Australians.

Hi Kelly and Stephen this is very useful. Thank you so much for conducting such research. The views expressed by the students reflect broader public perceptions!

Many thanks for picking up, Kelly. I suspect that the study of "economics" means the eventual graduate is more marketable, public or private. The universities' paradigm of "economics" favours the private sector over the public, unless it's Keynesian economics. So I was more thinking of graduates not in economics. For example, my course went to the heart of what good and effective government means and can be tested. I would have hoped that UPNG would have been very interested in what happens to the lives of its general graduates.

Thank you, Pak Eddie, for your thoughtful comment. I’m truly impressed by your work, especially with OpenSID. I completely agree that empowering civil society organisations (CSOs) and ordinary citizens at the village level to speak out about issues related to resource allocation is vital for tackling corruption. However, it's not as straightforward as it may seem. One major challenge is the absence of a dedicated whistleblower protection law in our country, which would shield those who report corruption. When we consider the risks and consequences involved, the costs for whistleblowers often feel much greater than any immediate incentives they might receive. Additionally, there are cultural factors at play—individuals who report corruption often face social exclusion from their communities, which can significantly impact their lives. This is a tough but crucial issue that needs to be addressed. Therefore, the state must ensure the physical, emotional, and economic safety of whistleblowers and their families. Another factor that could help is increasing the willingness of public officials, including district heads, mayors, and parliament members, to seriously confront corruption at the local level. Salam, Garry Rosario da Gama

Glad that you mentioned the need to encourage and facilitate the involvement of civil society organisations. Grass-roots movements can complement and fill the gap that top-down approaches have not been able to reach or sustain. Our experience at Perkumpulan Desa Digital Terbuka has shown that involving and empowering villages directly in a sustainable manner can achieve results that uncoordinated and intermittent national efforts struggle with. With this village-centric approach, our open source community based village information system, OpenSID, is now actively used daily by more than 8,200 villages (and growing) to improve village administration, services to all their residents, and importantly transparency and accountability. In particular, many villages using OpenSID have regularly been successful in the annual KPK village anti-corruption competitions.

Keep up the great work! Thank you so much for sharing a great post.

Hi Peter, Most postgraduate students at SBPP are employed in the public sector and often return to their departments, particularly if their studies are employer-funded. For UPNG undergraduates, comprehensive job data isn’t available. However, a 2018 survey of UPNG economics graduates showed that 50% work in the private sector and about 35% in the public sector. From my experience, our economics graduates typically find roles in commercial banks, private advisory firms, and government departments like Treasury and the Central bank. Here's a link to the student employment survey from 2018: https://devpolicy.org/upng-student-employment-outcomes-survey-results-20180725/

I concur with the concluding sentiments. It is interesting to see the increased sense of unity amongst the younger generations, who have rightly identified the primary root cause of law and order: poor management of resources and funds, corruption, and a need for good leadership and governance.

Commend you both for the insights; correct me if I am gone wrong here. Please can you both clarify where does the legitimate landowners of Porgera fits here. The land is own by the people of Porgera and where are their potions of their shares in all these deals. I see something is totally wrong in this mining deal done. I see no legitimate landowner representative being in any major stakeholders meetings and so forth......pigs and dogs have been benefiting since 1990 and its enough, lets be fair...we need to put it out clearer for the good of this God given beautiful people of Porgera Valley. Let them see some lights now, 30 plus years of living in no mans land and doing cowboy mining must come to an end. May the Mother Nature blessed those who have benefited over the past years and let go now so the poor legitimate land owners can enjoy the remaining of the mining. Thank you for this platform so I can view my thoughts as a neighboring district of Laiagam.

Thanks to both, Kelly and Stephen. But something that always occurred to me, when I was teaching "Policy Monitoring and Evaluation" to UPNG students, between 2021 and 2023. Where are they now? What jobs did they get after graduation - if any?